It is worth noting that Gender Pay Gap statistics effectively compare average pay and bonus received by all men in the workplace compared with average pay and bonus received by all women in the workplace. What it doesn’t do is tell us anything about whether men and woman are paid equally for the same or similar roles within the business.

Lifetime Brands Europe Limited has a clear policy of paying employees equally for the same or equivalent work, regardless of their sex (or any other characteristic). We are a company built around strong workforce foundation comprising of many different nationalities and faiths and we are proud of the contribution we have played in promoting and ensuring gender diversity, inclusion and opportunity. Creating an environment in which both men and women can reach their career aspirations is vitally important to us and promotions are gained on merit. There is always more to do and we continue to look for new and different ways to reach our goals.

We are confident that our gender pay gap does not stem from paying men and women differently for the same or equivalent work.

Our Gender Pay Gap

This report is for the snapshot date of 5 April 2017 for Lifetime Brands Europe Limited, encompassing both our Cook and Dine Divisions. At this date our employee base was made up of 49.7% males and 50.3% females.

The Mean Gender Pay Gap is 22.3%

The Median Gender Pay Gap is 11.2%

The Mean Gender Bonus Gap is 56.4%

The Median Gender Bonus Gap is 25%

The proportion of male employees receiving a bonus is 81.8% and the proportion of female employees receiving a bonus is 64.7%

Pay Quartiles by Gender:

Understanding the Gap

The vast majority of organisations have a gender pay gap and we are pleased to be able to say that our Median pay gap of 11.2% compares favourably with the 2017 ONS ASHE whole economy pay gap of 18.4%. Our Mean pay gap is slightly higher than the 2017 ONS ASHE whole economy pay gap of 17.4% but compares well against the private sector gap of 24.5%.

We have conducted an in-depth analysis of our data and we are confident that our gender pay gap does not stem from paying men and women differently for the same work or equivalent work.

We do not believe that there is an imbalance in the rates of pay given to men and women doing the same or equivalent work, and nor there is a significant gap between men and women at the equivalent grade in our structure. Likewise, bonus schemes, where operated, are applied consistently regardless of gender.

However, at the time of the snapshot all of our combined 11 Board Directors, 9 were male, which meant that only 18% were female. During the year since the snapshot this has increased to over 33%. The Leadership Team now consists of 50% male and 50% female members, all appointed on merit.

Similarly the majority of employees falling within the Upper Quartile were male. The percentage is impacted by the number of Directors and male employees in senior or unique roles within the business. We anticipate that our next GPG analysis for the year ending 5 April 2018 will show significant reductions in both the Mean and Median hourly rates and that the proportion of females in the Upper and Upper Middle quartile will increase with the recruitment, on merit, of a number of females into senior sales roles within the organisation.

The mean gender bonus gap is relatively large at almost 56.4%. However, our analysis reveals that this is due to the number of male Directors, senior managers and specialists who had personal bonus or commission schemes in place at that time. If we exclude the Directors from the figures the pay gap is 33.7%.

It is also noteworthy that the bonus opportunities for Creative Tops colleagues were primarily focused on Directors, senior managers and sales specialists whereas at KitchenCraft every employee could earn a bonus of varying amounts based on the job role.

With the restructure of the Sales and Buying functions during 2017 the balance between male and females in the Field Sales team, for example, will result in a higher proportion of females than at the point of the snapshot, and this will be reflected in the 2018 snapshot submission.

We are confident that our actions from this snapshot to the next in April 2018 will result in a significant decrease in both the Mean and Median GPG, as well as decreases in the bonus elements.

What are we doing?

Our gender pay gap compares favourably with that of organisations both across the whole UK economy and within our industry sector and we are confident that are approach to pay promotes fairness and equality for men and women in the same or similar roles.

However, we recognise that there is further scope to reduce our Gender Pay Gap and we will:

continue to carry out regular pay and benefits audits to ensure continued fairness and consistency in our pay structures

continue with the harmonisation of terms, conditions and benefits between the Cook and Dine divisions

introduce Job Evaluation

continue to promote Flexible Working

continue to promote Equal Opportunity in all recruitment activities

analyse GPG on other protected characteristics (eg, ethnicity, age)

I confirm that the information in this statement is accurate.

Matthew Canwell

Managing Director, Lifetime Brands Europe Limited

KitchenCraft Modern Slavery Act Company Statement

KitchenCraft welcome the Modern Slavery Act 2015 into law, bringing labour rights into renewed focus and the duty it places on companies to publicly disclose the active steps they are taking in order to tackle the issue of forced labour and human trafficking.

We support the promotion of ethical business policies and practices in order to protect workers from any kind of abuse, deprivation of a person’s liberty or exploitation in relation to our business and supply chain.

Addressing ethical compliance has become part of our core business practice. We arm the key members of our team who work diligently with our supply base with the knowledge, understanding and awareness of ethical compliance, it means we are tackling issues of ethical compliance and modern slavery head on, whilst ultimately taking active steps to affect and improve the quality of workers lives. We take responsibility and are alert to these risks, however small, in our business and within our supply chain.

Policy, compliance and due diligence in our business

KitchenCraft ensures we comply with all applicable employment laws and commit to ensuring fairness in the hiring and advancement of all colleagues without discrimination. We require all staff to comply with the company’s code of conduct and ethics within all business dealings.

We are transparent and regularly review our recruitment processes, ensuring full and stringent verification for all labour providers used.

Policy, compliance and due diligence in our supply base

We operate a zero-tolerance approach to slavery and human trafficking and require our suppliers to ensure they do not use forced labour, bonded orinvoluntary prison labour within their operation.

We have also embarked on a programme to communicate and regulate our policies to existing and new suppliers, as well as our sourcing agents and employees throughout the business where we make it clear from the outset our expectations; insisting on only working with suppliers who share our ethical values. We encourage open transactions and lines of discussions and work through challenges together with suppliers, with a refusal to trade with them should they offer little or no engagement or transparency.

Assessing and identifying risk

We understand the key to assessing risk is to build relationships and build capacity with suppliers where we develop a culture where there is mutual respect and trust in order to understand our suppliers and offer support in the evaluation of risk. We insist on full transparency and visibility throughout all aspects of our Supply Chain.

Aspects of modern slavery can be extremely subtle, with forced labour, labour trafficking and exploitation of workers often being a hidden blight on global society – therefore while third party ethical and social audits in factories can offer benchmarks and indicators, we go above and beyond by engaging key stakeholders, completion of robust Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQ) collaboratively with suppliers, mapping our supply chains, adopting a diligent approach in our selection of new suppliers through factory visits and our rigorous factory evaluation and verification process.

Awareness and collaboration

KitchenCraft recognise that goods we manufacture and import from outside the UK are at risk of slavery and human trafficking - we will commit to working collaboratively with suppliers in order to raise continued awareness and continually review our verification processes to address and eradicate any such risks.

KitchenCraft’s commitment

All businesses must play their part in tackling Modern Slavery and combatting it effectively requires improved traceability, increased transparency and through working collaborations. KitchenCraft will commit to review annually our Modern Slavery policies to ensure its relevance, whilst factoring in social and economic factors and changes. We will continue to maintain our SEDEX membership and continue to strive to assess and improve on all ethical business practices and assessment of risks, current and new. Our policies, procedures and approach to ethical compliance are geared towards what we believe to be balanced, reasonable, effective and practical.

This statement has been approved by the KitchenCraft board of directors.